Shisha lost 73 pounds

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Transformation of the Day: Shisha lost 73 pounds. Our sista from Curacao tried crash diets and various ineffective methods to lose weight in the past, but nothing worked. When she cut out the junk food, cut carbs and exercised regularly, she got results. Check out what she shared with us. What inspired you when you too keep going? […]

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1. Tammie lost 47 pounds
2. Jillian lost over 50 pounds
3. Dayjelle lost 94 pounds

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Feeling Young at Heart May Improve Sex Life

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Canadian researchers discovered an individual’s perception of how they feel in comparison to their stated age makes a difference when it comes to sex.

University of Waterloo researchers found the closer you feel to your actual age, the less likely you are to be satisfied with your sex life. Conversely, feeling younger than your age was associated with better sex.

Study findings appear in the Journal of Sex Research.

Researchers looked at the attitudes of sex and aging of a group of 1170 adults from their mid-40s to their mid-70s over a 10-year period.

The group, which included people of diverse sexual orientation, reported that the closer people felt to their chronological age, the lower the quality of their sex life.

“What was clear from the data is that feeling younger had a huge impact on how people felt about the quality of their sex life and how interested they were in having sex,” said Dr. Steven Mock, an associate professor in Recreation and Leisure Studies at Waterloo.

“For people in mid- to later life, feeling young at heart actually appears to make a difference in the bedroom.”

The research drew upon data collected in the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study in the between 1995 and 2005. The MIDUS study is a national longitudinal study of health and wellbeing in the United States and measures the physical and mental health of participants over a period of decades.

“It’s important to consider all of the different psychosocial and biological factors that might influence a person’s sexuality,” “said Amy Estill, who led the research while completing her master’s degree at Waterloo.

“While feeling younger didn’t have an impact on how much sex people were having, it was quite clear that feeling older does impact the quality of the sex you’re having.”

Source: University of Waterloo/EurekAlert

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May 31, 2017 at 01:35AM

How to Be a Better News Consumer

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Lately I find myself feeling increasingly anxious, angry and demoralized after reading the news. Still, I refresh my phone's news app (my main news delivery device these days) multiple times a day, like a rat looking for one more drop of sugar water. I believe, as do most people, that citizens of a democracy have a responsibility to remain informed, but I fear this constant deluge of information has overwhelmed our ability to process it well. Regardless of your political leanings, we can all agree that the news cycle can feel relentless at times. So I dug into the research and talked to experts about some ways we can all become better consumers of news.

#1 Find the right dose. Psychiatrist M. Katherine Shear, director of the Center for Complicated Grief at Columbia University, says she has been hearing from many people that they're feeling bogged down by the news. Politically charged stories and tales of human suffering can cause sadness, anger, and even feelings of grief and loss, she says. One study done in 2015 by Pam Ramsden, who studies psychological resiliency at the University of Bradford in England, found that 22 percent of subjects experienced some symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (such as jitteriness or the belief that the world is extremely dangerous) after viewing violent news images on social media—and symptoms worsened with increased exposure. “We need to go there and contact that pain, and then we also need to set it aside,” Shear says. When it comes to emotionally charged news, “you have to learn your own dose.”

#2 Read past the headlines! Five or six words will never tell an entire story, yet people regularly share stories based solely on headlines, according to a study by Maksym Gabielkov and Arthi Ramachandran, both then at Columbia. For one month in 2016, they gathered all tweets, including links using Bitly—a Web app that shortens URLs—to a handful of major news stories and then collated them with Bitly's click logs. After crunching the data, the researchers extrapolated the fact that a majority (59 percent) of the shared links had never been clicked through and read. No wonder so many social media feeds are flooded with repetitive jabber. My friend Andrew DeVigal, a journalism professor at the University of Oregon, suggests a way to show friends you have done your due diligence: “When I share a link, I also share a piece of the content from the article so that people understand why I'm reacting to it and want to talk about it.”

#3 Be your own fact-checker. Twenty-three percent of people admit to having shared a fake news story on Facebook, either accidentally or on purpose, according to a 2016 Pew Research Center survey. It's tempting for me, a journalist on her high horse, to chalk that up to people being willfully ignorant. Yet the news ecosystem has become so overcrowded and complicated that I can understand why navigating it is challenging. When in doubt, we need to cross-check story lines ourselves. DeVigal often consults AllSides, FactCheck.org and Snopes for a fuller picture of what's true or false, fact or opinion.

#4 Diversify your media diet. Because we are often connected with like-minded friends on social media, many of us have locked ourselves into echo chambers where most of the news we read or watch simply confirms what we already believe. Other aspects of our news diet are out of whack, too: a nationally representative survey done in 2014 by the Pew Research Center found that conservatives are far more likely than other ideological groups to rely on a single outlet—Fox News—for political and government news coverage. (The quick details: 47 percent of “consistent conservatives” say they get most of their info from Fox News; people with mixed political ideologies tend to rely on CNN and local television news; and “consistent liberals” are pretty evenly spread among CNN, NPR, MSNBC and the New York Times.)

The news landscape, like the world, is in flux. Organizations that have for decades been considered bastions of trusted reporting are regularly being called “biased” or “fake” by the president of the U.S., and some outlets truly are blurring the difference between reportage and opinionated audience bait. In this unprecedented time, I have started taking responsibility for my own information with this one small step: I have diversified my news app by seeding it with a rainbow of outlets, including the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Guardian, NPR and Fox News.

These varied takes on current events help to ground me in what's really going on out there—and isn't that what news is supposed to be about?

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May 31, 2017 at 01:31AM

How to Deal with Rejection: 7 Habits That Have Helped Me

How to Deal with Rejection: 7 Habits That Have Helped Me

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“Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do and damned if you don’t.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

“Most fears of rejection rest on the desire for approval from other people. Don’t base your self-esteem on their opinions.”
Harvey Mackay

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”
Samuel Beckett

In this week’s article I’d like to look back into the past.

Back to the time when I was single.

It was a period when I faced rejection a lot of the time.

Which was actually a step forward for me. Because before that I spent much of my time totally avoiding situations where I could be rejected.

But still, being rejected hurt.

So I’d like to share a handful of habits and reminders that I learned during those years. They helped me to lessen the sting of rejection and still do when I get rejected in other ways.

1. Take some time to process it instead of forcing a smile on your face.

Trying to force optimism or to move forward when you are still in an emotional turmoil or a bit shocked usually don’t work that well.

So first just take a bit of time to process the thoughts and feelings that arise when you’ve been rejected.

At first it will likely hurt. Maybe a bit. Maybe a lot.

That’s OK. Just be with those feelings and thoughts instead of trying to push them away.

Because if you do, if you let them in and accept that they are there then it will go faster and in the long run be less painful to process what’s happened. At least in my experience.

If you on the other hand try push it all away then those emotions tend to pop up at unexpected times and can make you moody, angry or pessimistic.

2. Focus on what you still have in your life.

Take some time for the thoughts that arose. But don’t get stuck in dwelling and in dragging yourself down into an ocean of self-doubt and negativity.

Instead, shift your focus to what you actually still have in your life. The people, the passions or hobbies, the sometimes taken for granted things like a roof over your head and that you don’t have to go hungry.

Tapping into gratitude like this helps me to put what happened into perspective and to not let it overwhelm me.

3. Don’t think it’s all about you.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking there is something wrong with you if you for example don’t get a second date.

But not everything is about you.

The other person may have his or her own self-doubts. Or things from the past he or she has not moved on from yet. Or that person may simply be looking for something or someone else than you.

That’s just how life is. So see if you can learn something from the situation but don’t put everything that happens on yourself.

4. Be constructive and focus on what you can learn.

As I mentioned above, not everything is about you if you get rejected. And getting rejected is just a part of a life well lived, of a life where you go outside of your comfort zone.

But at the same time be honest with yourself to increase the chances of success and reduce the risk of rejection in the future.

Maybe there’s something you can improve about your interview skills when you’re at a job interview? Or about your conversation skills or ability to keep it relaxed and positive when you’re on a date? That was at least the case for me with all of those things.

Two questions that helped me to get into a constructive headspace a while after rejection are:

• What’s one thing I can learn from this?
• What’s one thing I can do differently the next time?

Maybe these questions will give you an idea or two. Or maybe they sometimes won’t.

But I’m at least glad that I’ve taken a couple of minutes with them after my setbacks and rejections because they have often helped me to make progress and to improve many parts of my life.

5. Remember: this is temporary, not permanent (if you keep going).

When you’ve been rejected then you may start thinking that this permanent. That you’ll always fail in this area of life and get pushed away.

Don’t get seduced by such a destructive thought and potentially self-fulfilling prophecy.

Instead, remind yourself of these two things:

• Just because you got rejected today at a date or a job interview doesn’t mean you’ll get rejected in a similar situation next week (even if it might feel like that right now).
• The truth is that this just a temporary situation and it won’t last for the rest of your life if you keep moving forward step-by-step, keep learning and it doesn’t label you as a failure (so don’t put that label on yourself).

6. Strengthen your self-esteem.

A self-esteem toolbox filled with helpful thought habits and strategies won’t make you invincible to rejection or any other negative situation.

But it makes you stronger. It makes you less vulnerable to what others may think or say about you. It makes more things bounce off you. Instead of them dragging you deeper and deeper down.

And with kinder self-talk that is actually helpful it’s easier to stay constructive and learn something you can use in the future and to keep going forward (compared to if you beat yourself up for weeks or get lost in a moody funk).

7. Keep going.

Process what’s happened, learn what you can but don’t let the rejection stop you for too long. Don’t let it get you stuck for weeks or months.

With a focus on what you still got in life (that many in the world don’t have), on what you can maybe do differently and with your attention on your opinion of yourself and what you actions you can take keep moving forward.

Even if it’s by just taking one small step at first.

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May 31, 2017 at 01:25AM

Leaders Could Use Some Charisma, But Not Too Much

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Emerging research suggests that while a leader should display charisma, too much may hinder a leader’s effectiveness.

Specifically, the new study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, finds that although a moderate level of charisma is important, too much magnetism is problematic.

“Our findings suggest that organizations may want to consider selecting applicants with mid-range levels of charisma into leadership roles, instead of extremely charismatic leaders,” said Jasmine Vergauwe, a doctoral student at Ghent University and lead author of the study.

Vergauwe and her colleagues took a trait perspective on charisma by measuring charismatic personality using 56 questions, known as the charismatic cluster, from the Hogan Development Survey, an instrument used to assess the personality of leaders.

The charismatic cluster focuses on four personality tendencies: bold, mischievous, colorful and imaginative.

To confirm the cluster as a valid measurement, the researchers compared the scores from 204 leaders who took the personality test with subordinates’ ratings of their charismatic leadership and found a significant correlation.

In a second sample, they also found an association between the charismatic cluster and self- and observer-rated charisma-related personality tendencies described in the literature.

In two other studies, the researchers compared the charisma scores of nearly 600 business leaders with their effectiveness as reported by peers, subordinates and superiors.

In both studies, they found that as charisma increased, so did perceived effectiveness, but only up to a point. At a certain level, as charisma scores continued to increase, perceived effectiveness started to decline.

“Leaders with both low and high charismatic personalities were perceived as being less effective than leaders with moderate levels of charisma, and this was true according to all three rater groups,” said co-author Filip De Fruyt, Ph.D., also of Ghent University.

Further analysis of the data suggests that the point at which the relationship between charisma and effectiveness turns negative can be moderated by an individual’s level of adjustment, or ability to cope with stressful events.

The researchers also discovered that low-charisma leaders were seen as less effective because they were not sufficiently strategic, while high-charisma leaders were seen as less effective because they were weak on operational behavior.

An operational leader is someone who guides the team to get things done in the near term by managing the tactical details of execution, focusing resources, and managing with process discipline.

Strategic leadership, on the other hand, involves effectively communicating a vision for an organization and persuading others to share that vision.

Moderately charismatic leaders were rated most effective because they appeared to exhibit both of these behaviors in adequate amounts.

The findings were partially surprising, said Vergauwe, because the researchers had expected that interpersonal characteristics associated with charisma might also play a role, but they found no such association.

“While conventional wisdom suggests that highly charismatic leaders might fail for interpersonal reasons like arrogance and self-centeredness, our findings suggest that business-related behaviors, more than interpersonal behavior, drive leader effectiveness ratings,” she said.

This research may have important practical implications for the selection, training and development of future leaders, according to Vergauwe.

For one thing, organizations may want to consider selecting applicants with mid-range levels of charisma for leadership roles, instead of extremely charismatic ones.

Current and potential leaders could also receive more specialized training based on their level of charisma.

“Highly charismatic leaders would probably gain the most from a coaching program focused on addressing operational demands such as attending to day-to-day operations and managing an orderly workflow,” De Fruyt said.

“Low-charisma leaders, on the other hand, would benefit from training in more strategic behavior such as spending more time and energy on long-term planning, taking a broader perspective on the business as a whole, questioning the status quo and creating a safe environment for trying new things.”

Source: American Psychological Association

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May 31, 2017 at 12:52AM

Older Kids Are More Likely to Confess to Bad Deeds

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Parents of toddlers know the routine: You catch your child red-handed and sticky-fingered—the evidence of a candy raid literally written on his or her face. But instead of a confession, you get a wide-eyed denial: “I didn't do it!”

Learning to tell the truth, even at the risk of punishment, is an important part of moral development, and new evidence suggests it can take seven or more years for kids to get there.

For a study published in 2017 in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, University of Michigan developmental psychologist Craig E. Smith and his colleagues recruited 48 children between four and nine years of age. They told the kids a story about a boy or girl doing something wrong, such as taking a classmate's toy or candy, and then either lying about the misdeed to a parent or confessing it. In each case, they asked the children, How would the child feel? How would the mother feel?

The children's answers were generally distributed according to age, which is in line with previous research showing a gradual growth of moral understanding and emotional complexity in early childhood. More of the four- to five-year-olds reported thinking the child in the story would feel better keeping the stolen candy, lying and escaping punishment. They imagined the parent in the study would be angry with the child who confessed. In contrast, the seven- to nine-year-olds were more likely to think the child would feel better owning up to the crime and that the parent would have positive feelings toward a confessor.

Moreover, the results of the storytelling exercise matched real-life behavior. Parents reported that regardless of age, children in the study who associated positive emotions with confessing in the story had a better history of honesty about their own transgressions.

This study dovetails nicely with past research, says developmental psychologist Angela Evans of Brock University in Ontario, whose own work suggests that children's literature can help shape moral development. In 2014 she and her colleagues found that children who were told classic stories about honesty, such as the story of George Washington and the cherry tree, in which he is praised for admitting he cut it down, were more likely to confess to ignoring researcher instructions than the children who heard stories in which bad things happened to kids who lie, as in Pinocchio or “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.”

What parents can learn from these studies, Smith says, is to listen calmly when their child confesses rather than expressing anger. Reward the honesty even if you feel you must punish the offense. Evans adds, “Both these studies support the idea that parents need to show the positive aspects of confession because focusing on the negative consequences of lying does not improve behavior.”

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May 31, 2017 at 12:32AM

How Childhood Trauma Can Hike Risk for Later Psychosis

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New research attempts to explain how trauma in childhood can put children at risk for psychosis in later childhood or during adulthood.

Investigators said childhood trauma is the experience of a highly distressing event or situation during one’s youth, which is beyond a minor’s capacity for coping or control.

Although the majority of children who experience trauma do not exhibit signs of psychosis later, a sizable share (by some estimates as much as 35 percent) of children go on to experience psychotic episodes.

Trauma encompasses many possible events, from enduring sexual or physical violence to facing the death of a parent. While such events would be painful for anyone, some children who experience trauma become particularly susceptible to psychosis.

For this subgroup of kids, they may become more prone to unusual thoughts, beliefs, and experiences that might make it hard to distinguish things as either real or imagined.

Currently, before most people experience full-blown psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia, they are often diagnosed as being at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis.

A small but growing number of studies on the CHR population have begun to focus on identifying possible factors that predict the conversion to psychotic disorders, such as the role of childhood trauma.

These can occur in later childhood or young adulthood. At worst, these events require psychiatric hospitalization, which can become yet another form of trauma.

As such, early identification of the warning signs of psychosis is critical. Current evidence suggests some particular forms of trauma do increase the risk, including bullying, sexual abuse and emotional neglect.

Nevertheless, while various models have been proposed to explain why certain children who experienced trauma become susceptible to psychosis, physicians still do not have a clear understanding of this process.

To address these concerns, Dr. Danessa Mayo of the University of California, Davis, and colleagues performed a comprehensive literature review on the trauma-psychosis risk cycle. They then created a model, published in Frontiers in Psychiatry, that provides a comprehensive approach to detecting and mitigating effects of childhood trauma.

According to the model, early childhood trauma interacts with a child’s genetic vulnerability and propels them towards greater likelihood of altered developmental growth.

Factors such as poor emotional control, limited coping skills, poor social functioning and increased stress sensitivity increase a child’s risk of experiencing psychotic-like symptoms (e.g., unusual thoughts, suspiciousness, perceptual disturbances). The experience of having psychotic-like symptoms and a trauma history creates increased vulnerability for future trauma, creating a vicious circle.

New programs that provide early detection of those at risk of psychosis serve the vital function of preventing and reducing the severity of psychosis.

In their review, Mayo and colleagues found a benefit to such CHR screenings for trauma history. By closely analyzing the findings in a large sample of CHR screenings, physicians can effectively deduce early childhood predictors of conversion to psychosis.

Researchers explain that this work is ongoing, and a more consistent and specific definition of what is considered “trauma” should be determined.

Moreover, investigators said it will also be necessary to pay particular attention to the experience of members of different ethnic groups and races, as well as gender. It is possible that these variables impact the types of childhood traumas that later cause psychosis.

The researchers also recommend that physicians on the front lines of dealing with CHR youth get targeted training for assessing and treating individuals with both trauma and psychosis.

In addition, physicians should develop and adhere to standard protocols for assessing a history of childhood trauma. Finally, physicians should document any connections they uncover between childhood trauma and other health concerns, they said.

Appropriate early intervention can make a difference.

As Mayo noted, “We can promote resilience and mitigate the vulnerability of CHR individuals to developing a psychotic disorder and improve their chances of recovery.”

Source: Frontiers/EurekAlert

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May 31, 2017 at 12:02AM